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escargot1 Joined: 24 Aug 2001 Total posts: 17709 Location: Farkham Hall Age: 3 Gender: Female |
 Posted: 12-08-2010 22:59 Post subject: |
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Same here. Years ago when I drove a Fiesta, the front seatbelt often got stuck behind the driving seat and I couldn't be bothered to use it. Son 2 noticed this and told me off sternly.
I agreed that he was right and promised to wear it from then on, and I have, even on car parks and stately home drives.  |
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FelixAntonius Outsider.
Great Old One Joined: 08 Aug 2001 Total posts: 1097 Gender: Unknown |
| Posted: 13-08-2010 09:17 Post subject: |
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Years ago, while helping to archive old St Albans papers & documents, I came across an account in a coroner’s inquest of the 1810-20’s
A mail coach was passing under the arch of the White Hart Hotel on Holywell Hill, with two top passengers, a husband & wife, the husband ducked & the wife didn’t & was decapitated.
At the time, I was amazed that even a mail coach of it’s day, could travel at sufficient speed to produce such an injury, even more so, that if it was entering from the hill it would need to do a ninety degree turn to enter, or ditto on leaving.
But what sticks with me is the husband’s account, while still obviously traumatised, to the coroner. |
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| escargot1 Joined: 24 Aug 2001 Total posts: 17709 Location: Farkham Hall Age: 3 Gender: Female |
| Posted: 13-08-2010 11:43 Post subject: |
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Wish we could read that. 
The woman could've been decapitated at quite a low speed, as the bulk of the coach would create enough momentum, and the arch wasn't going anywhere. I imagine the head would have been sort of crushed and torn off, rather than sliced cleanly.
I've already spent too much time thinking this through. |
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| los_grandes_lutz You have no new messages
Great Old One Joined: 15 Apr 2010 Total posts: 326 Gender: Male |
| Posted: 13-08-2010 11:52 Post subject: |
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| Mythopoeika wrote: | | I make a point of refusing to drive if my passengers don't strap themselves in. |
I do the same and add that if they are killed in an accident, I will have to explain to their relatives why they were not wearing a belt. |
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| escargot1 Joined: 24 Aug 2001 Total posts: 17709 Location: Farkham Hall Age: 3 Gender: Female |
| Posted: 13-08-2010 12:01 Post subject: |
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You might be dead too though if they fly around the car in a collision and crush you.
Let'em walk!  |
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| escargot1 Joined: 24 Aug 2001 Total posts: 17709 Location: Farkham Hall Age: 3 Gender: Female |
| Posted: 13-08-2010 12:05 Post subject: |
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| FelixAntonius wrote: | | A mail coach was passing under the arch of the White Hart Hotel on Holywell Hill, with two top passengers, a husband & wife, the husband ducked & the wife didn’t & was decapitated. |
I've just had a google for that place and it's still there, complete with the arch!! |
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| FelixAntonius Outsider.
Great Old One Joined: 08 Aug 2001 Total posts: 1097 Gender: Unknown |
| Posted: 13-08-2010 15:50 Post subject: |
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| escargot1 wrote: | | I've just had a google for that place and it's still there, complete with the arch!! |
I used to drink there many years ago....
There is a long triangular area behind the Hotel, which is now a car park, (or was when I was last there), leading down to the White Hart Tap, which back in the early 1800's was lined on both sides with stables. The coaches would come up the Old London Road, into the yard, change horses then straight out under the arch, or going south, do that in reverse.
Strangely, I never came across an account of a head on crash under the arch between two mail coaches. Or, as the bar to the left of the arch has or had a doorway that opens out under the arch, a drunk staggering out & getting hit!!!!! |
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| escargot1 Joined: 24 Aug 2001 Total posts: 17709 Location: Farkham Hall Age: 3 Gender: Female |
| Posted: 13-08-2010 22:29 Post subject: |
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Yup, you'd think those things'd've happened at some time. Perhaps they had lookouts when a coach was due in or out?
I bet the current landlords'd like to know about the beheading, if they don't already. There'd soon be rumours of a mysterious coach and a piercing cry, cut suddenly short... |
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| FelixAntonius Outsider.
Great Old One Joined: 08 Aug 2001 Total posts: 1097 Gender: Unknown |
| Posted: 14-08-2010 19:59 Post subject: |
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| escargot1 wrote: | | Yup, you'd think those things'd've happened at some time. Perhaps they had lookouts when a coach was due in or out?........... |
Given the apparent ego's of some of those old time coachmen, they would have probably ignored the lookout & kept going.
There was an accident at one point, where two coaches were racing line abreast & came to a narrow bridge, result one big accident!!!!
Another bloke had the reputation of never having been stopped by highwaymen. This held him in good stead when he was sacked for being so drunk, he was unable to take a coach out, as a petition was raised to get him his job back.
The petition was successful & he continued for many more years.........
After he finally retired he was asked why he’d never stopped for tobymen?
His reply was: "I never saw e'm".
The suggestion even at the time was that he was habitually so drunk; he could only just focus on putting his coach through!!!!!
Sorry! This has nothing to do with decapitations!!!!!!!!!! |
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| escargot1 Joined: 24 Aug 2001 Total posts: 17709 Location: Farkham Hall Age: 3 Gender: Female |
| Posted: 15-08-2010 06:20 Post subject: |
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Fascinating anyway, though.  |
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| rynner2 What a Cad!
Great Old One Joined: 13 Dec 2008 Total posts: 20319 Location: Under the moon Gender: Male |
| Posted: 28-09-2010 09:16 Post subject: |
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Gardener decapitated in freak wood chipper accident
A gardener was killed after being decapitated when a rope around his neck was dragged into a wood chipper.
By Paul Thompson
Published: 11:51PM BST 27 Sep 2010
Miguel Vargas fought to avoid being pulled into the chipper after the rope was fed into the churning mechanism.
As the noose tightened around his neck it decapitated his head from his body.
Other workers made the discovery when they shut down the machine.
The gruesome accident happened in Tampa, Florida, USA, where Vargas, 44, was part of a five man crew trimming trees on a suburban street.
He was feeding branches into the chipper when a rope that had been used by one of the tree trimmers somehow slipped over his neck.
Unable to reach the emergency shut off button, Vargas desperately tried to avoid being dragged head first into the machine where he would have been chopped to bits.
According to his boss Dwayne Wilson the force of the rope looped around his neck was so great that he was decapitated.
Mr Wilson said: "I heard a piece of metal and I ran back to shut the machine down and when I did, I looked and saw him on the ground.
"The force of the wood chipper pulling the rope, Miguel struggled against the rope trying to escape the chipper but was decapitated within seconds."
He said he hit the emergency stop button after hearing a metal clip on the rope grinding against the chipper blades, but by that time Vargas was dead.
Police said Vargas had worked as a tree trimmer for seven years and had four years experience operating the wood chipper.
They have ruled his death an accident.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/8028834/Gardener-decapitated-in-freak-wood-chipper-accident.html |
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| McAvennie_ OBE Joined: 13 Mar 2003 Total posts: 2666 Location: Paris, France Age: 34 Gender: Male |
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| Mythopoeika Boring petty conservative
Joined: 18 Sep 2001 Total posts: 8820 Location: Not far from Bedford Gender: Unknown |
| Posted: 13-05-2011 17:45 Post subject: |
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| Wonder what the backstory is for THAT one... |
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| ramonmercado Psycho Punk
Joined: 19 Aug 2003 Total posts: 17657 Location: Dublin Gender: Male |
| Posted: 13-05-2011 18:13 Post subject: |
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| How come the DM doesn't blame the EU? |
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| ramonmercado Psycho Punk
Joined: 19 Aug 2003 Total posts: 17657 Location: Dublin Gender: Male |
| Posted: 13-05-2011 18:23 Post subject: |
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Actually this might fit in Bizarre Beheadings ..
(stu edit - link removed as threads merged) |
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